Forget You – Chapter Six – Falling Apart

Disclaimer: If I owned Fuller House, I would, well, I don't know what I'd do.

Michelle sat in the sitting room, waiting for D.J. to walk through the front door. She was nervous, yes, but she needed to get to the bottom of what was bugging her sister.

She managed to spare one last quick glance at Stephanie's picture before the front door opened and her eldest sister walked in.

D.J. hadn't seemed to notice her, so Michelle cleared her throat, causing the former to physically jump. "Oh, Michelle, it's just you."

"I need to talk to you." Was all Michelle replied with. She had to be straight to the point, otherwise she would lose her confidence, which had taken her about a week to build up.

"You do?" D.J. replied, clearly quite confused.

"Sit down please," she shuffled over on the couch to allow room for the other girl. "Deej, I know something is wrong, please tell me."

The girl in question, however, kept her lips pressed together, showing she wouldn't be as willing to talk as Michelle had hoped. Neither girl spoke for a minute. "D.J…" She prompted, yet once again, nothing.

"D.J., I can help you if you tell me what's wrong." This was going nowhere fast and was probably going to end badly for both sisters.

Only barely did Michelle notice her sister's lips moving a tiny bit, mumbling something. "Can you say that again? I couldn't hear you."

"I said, you wouldn't believe me anyway."

That only made Michelle even more confused, why wouldn't she believe her own sister? "Why wouldn't I believe you?"

"Because…"

D.J. was beginning difficult and both sisters knew it. This wasn't going anywhere. Michelle huffed a little before continuing. "D.J., stop being so darn stubborn and tell me what's wrong! Let me help you." Her voice faded from being raised to becoming pleading.

D.J. looked like she was going to say something for a moment but then she swallowed, deciding not to. "Look, Michelle, it's just, you're probably going to call me crazy about this."

"Well, tell me what it is," Michelle's voice was soft and reassuring, trying to get her sibling to reveal what had been bothering her for weeks now. "And I'll tell you, but there is a very high chance that I won't call you crazy. Although, if it is something crazy, I probably will call you it."

She was trying to make her sister laugh or even chuckle a little, but got no reaction. "Alright, not the time to joke."

"… th… aw… …ine." Was all she mumbled to herself, but Michelle caught parts of it.

"Say that again, please?" She had thought she heard some of it, but she wanted to make sure that she heard all of it.

Taking a deep breath, D.J. repeated herself. "I think I saw Stephanie."

No reaction.

Nothing.

Just silence.

Then Michelle's face began to change from a blank stare to upset, then confused, then finally ending on disbelieving. "Don't joke about that." Her voice was so cold; it would have made a snowman shudder.

"You think I would lie about that?" D.J. was shocked and starting to get angry. How could her sister think such a thing? She would never in a million years joke about their third sister.

Michelle shook her head. "D.J., as much as I hate to admit it, the chance of Stephanie being alive is next to nothing."

Her eyes widened, "How can you say that about your own sister?" D.J. couldn't tell if she was angry or upset, but probably both.

"You don't know how much it pains me to admit it, but I have to." Michelle's voice was wavering, nearly all emotion gone. "We have to let her go, D.J., I thought you had too."

"I had!" D.J. admitted. "But then things happened and I don't think Stephanie is dead any more, okay?"

D.J. had stood up, Michelle following her. "Donna Jo, this is crazy."

D.J. just stared at her sister, looking her straight in the eyes. "You don't believe me." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.

"Deej, you're my sister and I love you; I would support you on many of your decisions in life, but I can't support you on this one. If you're wrong about it all, I can't go through all that pain again. No way, no how." Michelle admitted.

The noise around them seemed to stop for a moment, nothing until D.J. nodded. "Okay."

"Okay?" Michelle repeated, this time as a question.

She nodded. "Okay, you don't believe me. I get it, I'm crazy. What was I thinking? Of course, there is no way Stephanie can still be alive. It's time to let her go, I guess. Stephanie died nineteen years ago. She probably didn't survive that accident; you saw my injuries. She was probably in that state, maybe even worse, who knows?"

D.J. turned on her heal, grabbing her purse and a coat from the rack before moving towards the front door. "Where are you going?" Michelle yelled after her, but to no success. D.J. was already gone.

When you're as upset as D.J. was at that moment of time, you probably shouldn't be driving. But she had to get away from all of it, all the confusion. She was beginning to believe that she was crazy. But then there was a part of her deep down that knew she was along the right track, that there was a chance Stephanie was still alive.

She finally came to a stop who knows how long later and was only slightly surprised to see where she had subconsciously driven.

Opening the door to her car, she left her purse and coat inside as she shut the door and began making her way through the metal gates, following the familiar winding path. After walking for several minutes, she finally got to where she wanted to be and sat down on the grass in front of the headstone.

She let her eyes scan over the words that were engraved into the stone;

In loving memory of

Stephanie Judith Tanner

January 14th 1982 – April 27th 1997

Beloved Daughter, Sister and Friend

Forever Deeply Missed

Good Night, Sleep Tight

D.J. ran her hand gently over the writing as one tear dripped down her face. That broke the dam, tears trickling in a continuous stream from her eyes, over her cheeks and dripping off her chin, forming two wet patches on her jeans.

Along with the tears came the flashbacks to nineteen years ago.

"Dad," D.J. began. "Where's Stephanie?"

Danny froze. He knew he had to explain everything to his daughter, but he wasn't sure that now was the right time to do it. She had just woken up and he didn't want to put any strain on her injuries.

"Dad." D.J. repeated. "Where is my little sister?" Her voice was becoming more and more strained with each word.

Danny perched himself on the edge of the bed and looked straight into D.J.'s eyes for a moment, reminding him so much of his late wife. G-d, did all his children have parts of Pam in them. "This is going to be hard to explain, okay?" He was talking as if D.J. was nine again and he had to break the news her mother wouldn't be coming home. "We don't know where Stephanie is."

She blinked, once, twice, "What do you mean?"

He reached out and put one hand on D.J.'s less cut-up cheek, "When the police and paramedics arrived on the scene, there was only you and the other man. Stephanie was nowhere in sight."

D.J. continued to look into her father's eyes for a moment before her eyebrows crinkled together, "Did, did they check around the scene of the accident? Did they double and triple check? She's got to be around there somewhere."

"Honey," Danny sighed. "Let me explain what happened. It was around two when we got the call that there had been an accident and that we had to get down to General as soon as we could. When we got here, I ran straight up to the desk and asked, 'Can I get any information on Donna Jo and Stephanie Tanner' Of course, with more panic. The nurse at the desk ran your name through first and told me you were being put through test as we spoke, but when she ran Stephanie's name through…" He trailed off, looking away as he ran a hand through his hair and his other hand dropped to his lap. "She said that there was no Stephanie Tanner at the hospital."

He could see D.J. going to ask a question but answered it before she could ask. "I asked them to double check, but there was nothing. She said she would try and figure out what was happening and let me know asap. They got in contact with the people who brought you in and they said that there was only two people at the scene of the accident, you and the other man who… passed away. A team was sent out immediately to search the area for Stephanie but nothing was found."

"The police were informed and they've been out for hours trying to find Steph. They said they need to find her soon because they don't know what condition she was in after the accident. Nobody knows if she got out of the car herself and wandered away because her side of the car wasn't as bad as yours or something else."

"But if she had wandered off, someone would have brought her in by now." D.J. pointed out, and although Danny stayed silent, he agreed with her. "But she can't be gone. We need her, I need her."

D.J. let herself collapse onto her father's should as he began gently running a hand through her hair, something that calmed her down when she was younger, as D.J. stared blankly at the wall in front of her.

The flashback ended and D.J. was brought back to reality. "Why did it have to be you?" She spoke aloud, looking at the stone in front of her. "It should have been me. Why did you leave us, me?"

Of course, nothing replied, as she was expecting, but a hand gently brushed her shoulder, followed by a familiar voice behind her, "D.J.?"

Michelle knows what D.J. thinks, yet she doesn't believe her. I would hate to be D.J. right now. The flash back reveals a little more about the past. Reviews are beginning to slip on this story, so please, make sure you keep it up! The more reviews there are, the more motivated I am to write for you!